LAHORE, July 19: Lawyers, civil society activists and political workers took out a rally on Thursday against the presidential reference against the chief justice of Pakistan and the Islamabad blast.
The protest rally is being taken out every Thursday from Aiwan-i-Adl up to the Charing Cross on The Mall since the March 9 action against the CJP. However, this Thursday participation of civil society as well as political parties’ workers was too thin perhaps due to the fear created by the blast at a reception camp for the CJP in Islamabad and because of tight security arrangements made by the local administration.
All roads linking The Mall were closed to every kind of traffic by the police and even pedestrians were not allowed to step on the thoroughfare during the protest march. Some mediamen, who were supposed to cover the event, were also stopped at Regal Chowk and LHC Chowk from joining the rally.
Representation of the PML-N and the Jamaat-i-Islami in the rally too was thin, even less than the Khaksar Tehrik and Imran Khan’s Tehrik-i-Insaaf that are much smaller political groups than the League and the Jamaat.
Lawyers boycotted court proceedings at Aiwan-i-Adl and staged a sit-in at the Post Master General Chowk on Lower Mall before marching towards the Charing Cross.
Political workers and civil society organisations’ activists as well as Lahore High Court Bar members, holding placard and banners inscribed with their demands, joined them at the GPO Chowk.
In front of the Punjab Assembly building, office-bearers of various bodies of lawyers spoke to the protesters before dispersing. They blamed the government for the blast outside the lawyers’ convention and described it as a ploy for creating a gulf between the legal fraternity and the civil society.
But they said they as well as the civil society would not be distracted from their target and the movement for the independence of judiciary would continue until it reached its logical end.
Funeral prayer in absentia was also offered for those who died in the blast.
Earlier, a general body meeting of the Lahore High Court Bar Association was held on the LHC premises. Secretary Sarfaraz Ahmad Cheema, Ehsan Wyne, Shahid Mahmood Bhatti, Shaista Qaiser, Mian Hanif Tahir, Malik Hamid Sarfaraz and others said Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had become a hero of not only the lawyers but also civil society by refusing to resign from his office despite threats from the army dictator and his cronies on March 9.
Referring to the current wave of terrorism, they wondered that the government knew how many terrorists were entering a specific area but it never rounded up any one of them.
Pledging to continue their struggle until return of the armed forces to the barracks, they demanded that the exiled leaders must give up their comfortable life abroad and return home to suffer along with the masses for the restoration of democracy.
Mr Cheema said the LHCBA would organise an all-Pakistan lawyers’ convention in the last week of July. The association had earlier held a similar function on March 17. Several lawyers had been injured during a clash with the police on the occasion.